Posts Tagged ‘chris’

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Certification: The Local Preference BGP Attribute

When studying for your BSCI exam for the CCNP, you get your first taste of BGP. One of the major differences between BGP and the other protocols you’ve studied to date is that BGP uses attributes to describe paths, and to influence the selection of one path over the other.

In this free tutorial, we’re going to take a look at the Local Preference attribute and compare it to the Cisco-proprietary BGP attribute “weight”.

The Local Preference (LOCAL_PREF) attribute is used to influence how traffic will flow from one Autonomous System (AS) to another when multiple paths exist. For example, if AS 100 has two different paths to a destination network in AS 200, the LOCAL_PREF attribute can be used to influence the path selection.

The major difference between the Weight and LOCAL_PREF attributes is that when the LOCAL_PREF attribute is changed, that change is reflected throughout the AS. The new LOCAL_PREF value will be advertised to all other routers in the AS, as compared to the Weight attribute, which is locally significant only. If you change the Weight for a path on one router in an AS, the other routers in the AS will not learn of the change.
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Cisco CCNP / BSCI Certification: Introduction To ISIS Terminology

When you’re studying to pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP certification, you’re going to be introduced to ISIS. ISIS and OSPF are both link-state protocols, but ISIS works quite differently from OSPF. You must master these details in order to earn your CCNP.

One of the major differences between OSPF and ISIS will be evident to you when you first begin your BSCI exam studies, and that is the terminology. ISIS uses terms that no other protocol you’ve studied to date uses, and learning these new terms is the first step to BSCI and CCNP exam success.

First off, what does “IS” stand for in “ISIS”? It stands for “Intermediate System”, which sounds like a group of routers. As opposed to Autonomous Systems, which are logical groups of routers, an Intermediate System is simply a single router. That’s it.

You’ll also become familiar with End Systems, referred to in ISIS as an “ES”. The End System is simply an end host.
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Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Static VLANs

BCMSN exam success and earning your CCNP certification requires you to add to your knowledge of VLAN configuration. When you studied for your CCNA exam, you learned how to place ports into a VLAN and what the purpose of VLANs was, but you may not be aware that there are two types of VLAN membership. To pass the BCMSN exam, you must know the details of both types.

In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at the VLAN type you are most familiar with, the “static VLAN”. As you know, VLANs are a great way to create smaller broadcast domains in your network. Host devices connected to a port belonging to one VLAN will receive broadcasts and multicasts only if they were originated by another host in that same VLAN. The drawback is that without the help of a Layer 3 switch or a router, inter-VLAN communication cannot occur.

The actual configuration of a static VLAN is simple enough. In this example, by placing switch ports 0/1 and 0/2 into VLAN 12, the only broadcasts and multicasts hosts connected to those ports will receive are the ones transmitted by ports in VLAN 12.

SW1(config)#int fast 0/1

SW1(config-if)#switchport mode access

SW1(config-if)#switchport access vlan 12
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Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial And Case Study: VLANs and IP Connectivity

In this CCNA case study, we’ll take some basic switching and trunking theory and put it into action. We have two routers (R2 and R3) along with two switches (SW1 and SW2). R2 is connected to SW1 at fast 0/2, and R3 is connected to SW2 at fast 0/3. Both routers have IP addresses on the 172.12.23.0 /24 network.

For these routers to be able to ping each other, the switches must be able to communicate. These are two 2950 switches, and they’re connected via two crossover cables. Before we worry about the router connectivity, let’s make sure the trunk link is up between the switches with the “show interface trunk” command.

SW2#show interface trunk

Port Mode Encapsulation Status Native vlan

Fa0/11 desirable 802.1q trunking 1

Fa0/12 desirable 802.1q trunking 1

< output truncated for clarity >

The default mode of these switches is for the ports to run in dynamic desirable trunking mode, so we didn’t even need to write a configuration to have the trunk form – it’s already there!

Show vlan brief reinforces the theory that by default, all switch ports are placed into VLAN 1 (except the trunk ports).

R2 and R3’s Ethernet addresses have already been configured, the trunk line is operational, and both ports are in VLAN 1. We’ll ping R2’s Ethernet interface from R3, and then R3’s Ethernet interface from R2 to verify IP connectivity.

R2#ping 172.23.23.3

Type escape sequence to abort.

Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.23.23.3, timeout is 2 seconds:

!!!!!

Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 4/4/8 ms

R3#ping 172.23.23.2

Type escape sequence to abort.

Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.23.23.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
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